


Strays

by yonnna



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Gen, In a better world she'd be a Disney princess, theres nothing really bad in this beyond the usual Niki stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 02:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9214160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/pseuds/yonnna
Summary: Niki is a mother to every stray in the world.





	

**Author's Note:**

> New favourite Niki headcanon: "Cats love Niki". I'm glad something loves her.

Niki shuts the door behind her with care; it’s no good to be caught sneaking out this late, especially after the commotion earlier. The swelling bruise on her cheek reminds her that silence is a virtue, so she designs to be as a ghost slipping into the alleyway.

 _Meeeeoooow_.

Her best attempts as a phantasm are ruined by the loud mewling of an animal nuzzling at her leg. _Little beast_. She tries to glare at him, but the most she can manage is a neutral expression.

“Hush!” She presses her finger to her lips and kneels, her skirts laying in circles on the cobblestone. She’ll be told off for dirtying her clothes, no doubt, but she puts this thought out of her mind for now. The cat, lost in the sea of fabric, tries to wrangle himself free of her dress and succeeds only in tearing it.

“Stupid thing,” she says, voice far too soft for the insult to carry any weight, and lifts the cat from where his claws are caught in the lace of her petticoat. “You’re nothing but trouble, you know that?”

But the curve of her lips almost resembles a smile.

“You should leave me alone. Find someone else to mooch off.”

The cat nestles his head into the crook of her neck, and she sighs.

“I’m not going to be alive much longer,” she states this as though it is fact, not a trace of melancholy in her flat voice. She gets a low purr in response. “It’s not my choice. I’m supposed to die.”

Setting the cat down on her lap, she reaches into her satchel and retrieves a small bundle.

“Since I’m dying, I don’t really need this,” she explains, unwrapping the cloth to reveal a small ration of vegetables. “I don’t know if you can eat it, but if want you can —”

He lifts his paw to bat at it, and she moves it just slightly out of his reach.

“You can have it _if_ you stop coming here. No one here’s going to look after you when I’m gone.” Is it possible for him to understand her? She’s not sure, but she has nothing to lose. “Find somewhere better.”

That’s easier said than done, isn’t it? God knows she’d find somewhere better if she could, but they all stick to the devil they know. She glances to the workshop over her shoulder — confirming that the door is still closed — before dropping the food in front of the cat.

“Or keep wandering around — I don’t care, as long as you don’t come back here.”

The girl who would attest that she does not care about anything in the world watches with muted fondness as a hungry cat picks at her food. Her own stomach is empty, but is filled with enough dread that she can’t eat without feeling nauseous.

Niki has a soft spot for strays. She thinks at first that it’s because she relates to them — no home, no parents, no reason to exist — but that’s not true, is it? She has a tag and an owner, and she may have no say in what her reason to exist is, but she always has one forced on her.

_Meowww._

“Bad cat. I said _hush._ ” She gives a small frown, scratching him behind his ear.

Maybe it’s that she _wants_ to be a stray, to be lost and free and revel in it, to be content without purpose, to own _herself_ even if it is the only thing she will ever own. Maybe she’s afraid to live without a collar; maybe she wishes she weren’t.

When he’s finished eating she lifts him off her lap and sets him back on the ground, giving him a nudge away from her.

“Go away. If my master sees you he’ll drown you.”

Niki has a soft spot for strays; the cats outside the workshop in her childhood, and the orphaned children who fall into her care later. She can’t place the _why_.


End file.
